The Longest Night

“You should read this,” Brittany had told her. “It’s actually very good. My boyfriend got me in to it. I’m not usually in to these kinds of stories, but…I dunno. I thought it was good.”

“What is it?”

“A…post-apocalyptic zombie novella.”

“You’re right, that doesn’t sound like something you’d be in to.”

“Hey, I’m not a total drag. I’m open-minded.”

Next Catherine pictured Brittany watching war movies about fire fights and bromance. She was the kind of girl that couldn’t possibly put down her cell phone and who would never dream of going to the corner store for milk without a shower and at least one application of lip gloss. Zombie stories?

“I promise, Catherine,” Brittany said pleadingly, “it’s actually really good. You’d like it.” In reality, Brittany had no idea if Catherine would like it or not. They’d been acquaintances in high school, but they were never as close as Brittany seemed to want to believe. However, Catherine looked between the little booklet and Brittany’s wide eyes and tight, small smile, and decided to humour her.

“Okay.”

So she read it. Every morning as she stood on the platform waiting for the train, she read a little bit of the story at a time. It was different from anything she’d read before. The sentences were blunt and some half-finished, leaving her abandoned, like she was in the story herself. Sharp, harsh imagery and frightening themes held her by the throat. In several instances within the first few pages, she had to stop and look around the platform just to make sure she was standing safe in reality and that no one was out to get her.

Trees even looked dead. Crooked bones sticking up from the ground like hands trying to claw out of a grave. Everything died and came back.

Catherine had finished that influential story half a year ago. Brittany wasn’t lying when she said it was very good. That particular passage sprung to mind as she read an article in the morning paper:

Wood Buffalo National Park Closed To Public: Federal government funding epidemic research in national parks

She had just started wearing her face mask like everyone else. For a few weeks, the virus was only an issue in Northern Ontario. Cases appeared in their own city and everyone had become plagued with fear. A lot of students stopped coming to her classes, most going back home in other towns, provinces, countries. According to the article, the virus had spread all across the continent, and was just starting to creep through Florida and Texas.

Passengers began to descend the stairs to the station, and Catherine looked up inconspicuously. She’d formed a habit of only tilting her head enough so that her eyes could just scan the crowd. As usual, at the very end of the line was him. She looked away quickly. Her eyes were on her paper but focused on him as he descended the stairs and strode across the platform.

He was wearing his usual winter regalia: a long black pea coat, dark grey slacks, and polished black loafers. He carried his briefcase beside him and wore his aged leather gloves. She gnawed her lip and shifted her feet. She still felt embarrassed about the incident with his glove. But he was wearing a face mask too. An ill confirmation.

He took his usual spot by the heat lamp and the train schedule, looked up, and sighed. He usually did this every morning, but it was only in the past few weeks that he had started. He scanned the ads on the wall opposite him, then gazed down the platform, faraway. Then he stared in her direction. And stared. Her heart skipped a beat. He had never looked at her directly before; she had always been the one watching him. She squirmed, gnawed at her lip some more, and re-gripped the paper in her hands.

Does he know? she thought.

After what should have been an hour passed, she summed up all her courage, took in a deep (but unnoticeable) breath, and looked up. She flicked her eyes from him to her paper and back again out of self-preservation and uncertainty. As she looked at his face closely, she realized it wasn’t her he was staring at, but at the newspaper she held in her hands.

She let go of the breath she had been holding. No, he didn’t recognize her from the article. No, he must not know of the book. No, he must not know of her secret and powerful admiration for him. As she looked at the details of his eyes, she saw something she had never seen in him before. He was a handsome man, perhaps in his mid forties; lines of age and wisdom marked his face, his dark hair accented with grey. It was his eyes that darkened him the most. A lot of weight was carried there. Those features which always appeared unwelcoming and rough now held a look of sadness and a touch of fear. Catherine realized he was looking upon the front page of the newspaper that was in her hands, which read:

Blood Virus Sweeps North America: Pandemic?

When she looked up again, his eyes were on hers.

Her instincts told her to look away, to avoid his gaze, afraid to let him know anything about her. But she couldn’t bring herself to. His features remained unchanged, but along with the muted fear and worry was a look Catherine couldn’t place. What she could see of his face appeared to grow softer the longer their eyes were connected.

The southbound train suddenly pulled into the station. The PA system announcing its arrival had been broken for days, and so the train would appear unexpectedly. He didn’t turn to board immediately; he kept looking at her in that same, sad way. The doors opened and eventually he boarded.

Catherine stood alone in the middle of the concrete island, holding the newspaper in front of her like an uncertain shield, watching the train take him away. Air whooshed by quietly. She stared at the spot where the train slipped out of view. It was the first time she had ever made eye contact with him.

Over the next few days, Catherine waited anxiously on the platform, waiting for him to come back, waiting to look directly at him with no restraints. By Wednesday, Catherine’s last day of school, she solemnly admitted defeat to herself as she accepted that she would never see him again.

They roared. Howls like dogs with meat and blood in their jaws, calling to those nearby that they were there and nothing could be taken from them; they were the archangels and they were here to spread the word of God with a lasting fury that could not be forgotten, nor remembered.

Come back HERE!

Catherine woke with a slight gasp. Morning light spilled though her tent, lightly brushing her face with its fingers to wake her from her dream. That voice. Just a nightmare. She used to think “Judgement Day,” the story Brittany had given her, was only for the faithful and the fearful. But it had come true. That last night in Fort McMurray…the screaming…

It took a few minutes to wash away the fear before she could even think of moving. No one’s here, no one can get you like that anymore. She was a little girl whose night light died just after she saw a glimpse of the Boogeyman’s face. She shrugged off her paralysis, then climbed out of the tent reluctantly and started breaking camp.

Rigor mortis still had hold over the corpse. Though broken, it was slumped against a tree, rigid as wood. Trying to cut into it was like trying to cut into stone. Nothing could be done here. It was of a shape convenient enough to still carry. Once she had everything packed away, she started on her long trek once again. It would take her another two or three days to make it back to the cabin. She had been living off the nearby land for nearly two years, and resources were starting to wear thin. She was reminded once more that she would have to relocate soon. It wasn’t likely she would find a new home before she froze or starved or succumbed to exposure.

She travelled for an hour in silence when a sudden distant wail stopped her short. She stumbled to a stop, looking up to the sky were the scream reverberated. It was from far off, maybe a kilometre. Rape, murder, hunting. She bowed her head. It was disconcerting to know she didn’t feel as horrified by those sounds as she should have been. Her emotions had been worn thin like the ocean tide wears out an old rock.

It was nearly two years ago now, when they went insane. The population was too great, law and order too unstable, and food too little, so the solution of the mad was to eat those less useful.